Vendors outraged at City Council’s move to demolish stalls

Several vendors of the Vendor’s Mall, Georgetown today vented their frustration after their stalls were demolished by City Hall for “being unsightly”.

When News Room visited the Mall on Thursday morning, several vendors, who had their stalls demolished by City Hall’s crew were visibly upset.

The vendors are denying claims by City Mayor, Patricia Chase-Green that they were given one month’s notice and also allegations of defaulting on environmental fees.

Meantime, Eon Andrews, President of the Guyana Market Vendors Union (GMVU) is calling for a change in the “draconian attitude” of those at the helm of City Hall, deeming the demolition an “embarrassment” to the people trying to seek self-employment.

“When they had the crisis in town, they just dump them here to ease the pressure off of themselves…another thing this part is not conducive to this kind of business… so if you want to bring people here you must put the proper infrastructure in place, so where they going now?” he questioned.

He added that “I was part of that council and I have seen some of the most skullduggery, hypocritical things that you have ever seen, and I was hoping that after we would have had our elections things would have changed, now what I am seeing here is that these people have taken their crookedness.”

According to Andrews, City Hall seems unprepared to sit with the Union and the vendors to come to an agreement.

He questioned why the Council is not going after the big businesses that owe millions of dollars, instead of targeting the “small man.”

Andrews said what is being witnessed is the militant arm of the party in power and cautioned that if something is not swiftly done, then people will become frustrated and the situation exacerbated into a national issue.